Our hosts this week were Laurie and Jules. They chose the basic white loaves. Without actually looking at the recipe, I was a bit concerned that this would be a time consuming or difficult recipe because, of course, anything to do with Julia and yeast dough must be difficult, right?!

Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this recipe was pretty simple. There are two 1-hour rest periods, but the actual prep time is about 15-20 minutes. I started this recipe in the morning, and as Dorie notes, my loaves were done by lunch time.

I actually didn't make the basic white loaves. I decided to kick them up a notch. To my first loaf I added a generous smear of butter and then some Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle from Penzey's. To my second loaf I added a generous smear of butter and then cinnamon and sugar. I didn't really measure anything out, just eye balled it, and in retrospect, probably need to add a lot more cinnamon and sugar next time to get the flavors to really come out. That said, my loaves turned out perfectly! They were golden on the outside and so soft and tender on the inside. I will definitely be making this one again!

- I actually made this twice because the first time I used almost dead yeast. So the second time around I was out of bread flour. I made it with regular bleached all purpose flour and the bread still turned out fantastic! I am sure it is better with bread flour but if you don't have bread flour that's ok too.

- Another filling I would love to try the next time I make this: pesto or nutella!

Hi Jaime, I was searching through bread blogs and happened to click yours. I would like to make the bread with cinnamon next time and was wondering, could you tell me how you readied it for the bread pan? Do you roll the bread to get the swirl, or do you follow the same instructions in the book? Thanks~ Melissa

Melissa (melotto) - you will need to roll your bread dough, just like you would a cinnamon roll, and then you can tuck the ends in just like the instructions in the book. If you follow the instructions in the book you will end up with a cinnamon "T" and not a swirl (I know b/c I forgot and did that w/my first loaf!)

I totally did that too with my first loaf! Well...it didn't look like a T but more like a question mark. :PI'll have to try cheese powder next time. When I read cheese swirls on the TWD site, I kept thinking...what the? How do you do that!?